CHAPTER 30
WIND FROM THE OPEN WINDOW RUSHES INTO the home economics room, the refrigerator in front of it doing little to prevent the cold air. The school is already
chilly from the electricity being off. Six is now wearing only the rubber suit, which is entirely black aside from a gray band slicing diagonally down the front
of it. She is standing in the middle of our group with such poise and confidence that I wish I had a Loric suit of my own. She opens her mouth to speak but
is interrupted by a loud boom from outside. All of us rush to the windows but can see nothing of what is happening. The crash is followed by several loud
bangs, and the sounds of tearing, gnashing, something being destroyed.
"What's happening?" I ask.
"Your lights," Henri says over the sounds of destruction.
I turn them on and sweep them across the yard outside. They reach but ten feet before being swallowed by the darkness. Henri steps back and
tilts his head, listening to the sounds in extreme concentration, and then he nods in resigned acceptance.
"They are destroying all the cars out there, my truck included," he says. "If we survive this and escape this school, it'll have to be on foot."
Terror sweeps across both Mark's and Sarah's faces.
"We can't waste any more time," Six says. "Strategy or no strategy, we have to go before the beasts and soldiers arrive. She said we can get out
through the gymnasium," Six says, and nods at Sarah. "It's our only hope."
"Her name is Sarah," I say.
I sit in a nearby chair, unnerved by the urgency in Six's voice. She seems to be the steady one, the one who has remained calm under the weight
of the terrors we have seen thus far. Bernie Kosar is back at the door, scratching at the fridges that are blocking it, growling and whining in impatience.
Since my lights are on, Six has a good look at him for the first time. She stares at Bernie Kosar, then squints her eyes and inches her face forward. She
walks over and bends down to pet him. I turn and look at her. I find it odd that she is grinning.
"What?" I ask.
She looks up at me. "You don't know?"
"Know what?"
Her grin widens. She looks back at Bernie Kosar, who races away from her and charges back to the window, scratching at it, growling, the
occasional bark in frustration. The school is surrounded, death imminent, almost certain, and Six is grinning. It irritates me.
"Your dog," she says. "You really don't know?"
"No," says Henri. I look at him. He shakes his head at Six.
"What the hell?" I ask. "What?"
Six looks at me, then at Henri. She emits a half laugh and opens her mouth to speak. But just before any words escape something catches her
eye and she rushes back to the window. We follow and, as before, the very subtle glow of a set of headlights sweeps around the bend in the road and into
the lot of the school. Another car, maybe a coach or teacher. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
"It could mean nothing," I say.
"Turn your lights off," Henri says to me.
I turn them off, clench my hands into fists. Something about the car outside causes anger within me. The hell with the exhaustion, with the shakes
that have been present ever since I jumped through the principal's window. I can't take being confined in this room any longer, knowing that the
Mogadorians are out there, waiting, and plotting our doom. That car outside may be the first of the soldiers arriving on the scene. But just when that
thought pops into my mind, we see the lights quickly retreat from the lot, and speed away in a hurry, down the same road they came.
"We have to get out of this damn school," Henri says.
Henri sits in a chair ten feet away from the door with the shotgun aimed right at it. He is breathing slowly though he is tense and I can see the muscles
flexed in his jaw. None of us say a word. Six made herself invisible and slipped out to do some exploring. We're just waiting, and finally it comes. Three
slight taps on the door, Six's knock so that we know it's her and not a scout trying to enter. Henri lowers the gun and she walks in and I return one of the
fridges to block the door behind her. She was gone for a full ten minutes.
"You were right," she says to Henri. "They've destroyed every car in the lot, and have somehow moved the wreckage to block every door from
being opened. And Sarah is right; they've overlooked the stage hatch. I counted seven scouts outside and five inside walking the halls. There was one
outside this door but it's been disposed of. They seem to be getting antsy. I think that means the others should have been here already, which means they
can't be far."
Henri stands and grabs the Chest and nods at me. I help him open it. He reaches in and pulls out a few small round pebbles that he sticks in his
pocket. I have no idea what they are. Then he closes and locks the Chest and slides it into one of the ovens and closes the door. I move a refrigerator up
against the oven to keep it from being opened. There really is no other choice. The Chest is heavy, it would be impossible to fight while carrying it, and we
need every available hand to get out of this mess.
"I hate to leave it behind," Henri says, shaking his head. Six nods uneasily. Something in the thought of the Mogadorians getting ahold of the Chest
terrifies them both.
"It'll be fine here," I say.
Henri lifts the shotgun and pumps it once, looks at Sarah and Mark.
"This isn't your fight," he tells them. "I don't know what to expect out there, but if this thing goes badly you guys get back in this school and stay
hidden. They aren't after you, and I don't think they'll care to come looking if they already have us."
Sarah and Mark both look stricken with fear, both holding their respective knives with white-knuckled grips in their right hands. Mark has lined his
belt with everything from the kitchen drawers that might be of use--more knives, the meat tenderizer, cheese grater, a pair of scissors.
"We go left out of this room, and when we reach the end of the hall, the gymnasium is past double doors twenty or so feet to the right," I say to
Henri.
"The hatch is in the very middle of the stage," Six says. "It's covered with a blue mat. There were no scouts in the gym, but that doesn't mean they
won't be there this time around."
"So we're just going to go outside and try to outrun them?" Sarah asks. Her voice is full of panic. She's breathing heavily.
"It's our only choice," says Henri.
I grab her hand. She is shaking badly.
"It'll be okay," I say.
"How do you know that?" she says in a more demanding tone than a questioning one.
"I don't," I say.
Six moves the fridge from the door. Bernie Kosar immediately starts scratching at the door, trying to get out, growling.
"I can't make you all invisible," Six says. "If I disappear, I'll still be nearby."
Six grabs hold of the doorknob and Sarah takes a deep, shaky breath beside me, squeezing my hand as tightly as she can. I can see the knife
quivering in her right hand.
"Stay close to me," I say.
"I'm not leaving your side."
The door swings open and Six jumps out into the hall, Henri close behind. I follow and Bernie Kosar races ahead of us all, a ball of fury speeding
away. Henri points the shotgun one way, then the other. The hallway is empty. Bernie Kosar has already reached the intersection. He disappears. Six
follows suit and makes herself invisible and the rest of us run towards the gym, Henri in the lead. I make Mark and Sarah go ahead of me. None of us can
really see a thing, can only hear each other's footsteps. I turn my lights on to help guide the way, and that's the first mistake I make.
A classroom door to my right swings open. Everything happens in a split second and, before I have a chance to react, I am hit in the shoulder with
something heavy. My lights shut off. I crash straight through a glass display window. I'm cut on the top of my head and blood runs down the side of my face
almost immediately. Sarah screams. Whatever it was that hit me clubs me again, a hollow thud in my ribs that knocks the wind from me.
"Turn your lights on!" Henri yells. I do. A scout stands over me, holding a six-foot-long piece of wood that it must have found in the industrial arts
classroom. It raises it in the air to hit me again, but Henri, standing twenty feet away, fires the shotgun first. The scout's head disappears, blown to pieces.
The rest of its body turns to ash before it even hits the floor.
Henri lowers the gun. "Shit," he says, catching sight of the blood. He takes a step towards me and then from the corner of my eye I see another
scout, in the same doorway, a sledgehammer raised over its head. It comes charging forward and, with telekinesis, I throw the nearest thing to me without
even knowing what that thing is. A golden glinting object that speeds through the air with violence. It hits the scout so hard that its skull cracks on impact,
and then it falls to the ground and lies motionless. Henri, Mark, and Sarah rush over. The scout is still alive and Henri takes Sarah's knife and thrusts it
through its chest, reducing it to a pile of ash. He hands Sarah back her knife. She holds it out in front of her, between thumb and forefinger, as though she's
just been handed a pair of somebody's dirty underwear. Mark bends down and lifts the object I had thrown, now in three separate pieces.
"It's my all-conference trophy," he says, and then can't help but chuckle to himself. "It was given to me last month."
I stand. It was the trophy case that I crashed through.
"You okay?" Henri asks, looking at the cut.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Let's keep going."
We rush down the hall and into the gymnasium, sprint across the floor, jump up onto the stage. I flip my lights on to see the blue mat being moved
away as though of its own volition. Then the hatch is thrown up. Only then does Six make herself visible again.
"What happened back there?" she asks.
"Ran into a little bit of trouble," Henri says, climbing down the ladder first to make sure the coast is clear. Then Sarah and Mark go.
"Where is the dog?" I ask.
Six shakes her head.
"Go on," I say. She goes down first, leaving only me on the stage. I whistle as loudly as I can, knowing full well that I'm giving away my position by
doing so. I wait.
"Come on, John," Henri calls up from below.
I crawl into the hatch, my feet on the ladder, but from the waist up I'm still on the stage, watching.
"Come on!" I say to myself. "Where are you?" And in that split second when I have no choice but to give up, but just before I drop down, Bernie
Kosar materializes on the far side of the gym and comes sprinting my way, ears pinned to the sides of his head. I smile.
"Come on!" Henri yells this time.
"Hold on!" I yell back.
Bernie Kosar jumps onto the stage and into my arms.
"Here!" I yell, and hand the dog to Six. I drop down, close and lock the hatch and turn my lights on as brightly as they'll go.
The walls and floor are made of concrete, reeking of mildew. We have to walk in a low crouch to keep from hitting our heads. Six leads the way.
The tunnel is about a hundred feet long and I have no idea what purpose this could have served at one time. We reach the end; a short flight of steps
leads to a pair of metal cellar doors. Six waits until everyone is together.
"Where does this open?" I ask.
"Behind the faculty lot," Sarah says. "Not far from the football field."
Six presses her ear to listen in the small crack between the closed doors. Nothing but the wind. Everyone's face is streaked with sweat, dust, and
fear. Six looks at Henri and nods. I turn my lights off.
"All right," she says, and makes herself invisible.
She inches the door up just enough to stick her head out and have a look around. The rest of us watch with bated breath, waiting, listening, all of us
wracked with nerves. She turns one way, then the other. Satisfied we've made it unnoticed, she pushes the door all the way open and we file out one by
one.
Everything is dark and silent, no wind, the forest trees to our right standing motionless. I look around, can see the busted silhouettes of the twisted
cars piled in front of the doors of the school. No stars or moon. No sky at all, almost as though we're beneath a bubble of darkness, some sort of dome
where only shadows remain. Bernie Kosar begins to growl, low at first so that my initial thought is that it's done for reasons of anxiety only; but the growl
grows into something more ferocious, more menacing, and I know that he senses something out there. All of our heads turn to see what he is growling at
but nothing moves. I take a step forward to put Sarah behind me. I think to turn on my lights but I know that will give us away even more so than the dog's
growl. Suddenly, Bernie Kosar takes off.
He charges ahead thirty yards before leaping through the air and sinking his teeth deeply into one of the unseen scouts, who materializes from out
of nowhere as though some spell of invisibility has been broken. In an instant, we're able to see them all, surrounding us, no fewer than twenty of them,
who begin closing in.
"It was a trap!" Henri yells, and fires twice and drops two scouts immediately.
"Get back in the tunnel!" I scream to Mark and Sarah.
One of the scouts comes charging towards me. I lift it in the air and hurl it as hard as I can against an oak tree twenty yards away. It hits the ground
with a thud, quickly stands, and hurls a dagger my way. I deflect it and lift the scout again and throw it even harder. It bursts into ash at the base of the tree.
Henri unloads more rounds, the shots echoing. Two hands grab me from behind. I almost deflect them until I realize that it's Sarah. Six is nowhere to be
seen. Bernie Kosar has brought a Mogadorian to the ground, his teeth now sunk deeply into its throat, hell ablaze in the dog's eyes.
"Get into the school!" I yell.
She doesn't let go. A clap of thunder breaks through the silence and a storm begins to brew, dark clouds now forming overhead with flashes of
lighting and thunder tearing through the night sky, loud pounding thunder that makes Sarah jump each time one booms. Six has reappeared, standing
thirty feet away, her eyes to the sky and her face twisted in concentration with both arms raised. She's the one creating the storm, controlling the weather.
Bolts of lightning begin raining down, striking the scouts dead where they stand, creating small explosions that form clouds of ash that drift listlessly
across the yard. Henri stands off to the side, loading more shells into the shotgun. The scout that Bernie Kosar is choking finally succumbs to death and
bursts into a heap of ash covering the dog's face. He sneezes once, shakes the ash from his coat and then rushes off and chases the closest scout until
they both disappear into the dense woods fifty yards away. I have this unbearable fear that I've seen him for the very last time.
"You have to go into the school," I say to Sarah. "You have to go now and you have to hide. Mark!" I yell. I look up and don't see him. I snap around.
I catch sight of him sprinting towards Henri, who is still loading his gun. At first I don't understand why, and then I see what is happening: a Mogadorian
scout has snuck up on Henri without his knowing it.
"Henri," I scream to get his attention. I lift my hand to stop the scout with its knife raised high in the air, but Mark tackles the thing first. A wrestling
match ensues. Henri snaps the shotgun closed, and Mark kicks the scout's knife away. Henri fires and the scout explodes. Henri says something to Mark.
I yell for Mark again and he sprints over, breathing heavily.
"You have to take Sarah into the school."
"I can help here," he says.
"It's not your fight. You have to hide! Get in the school and hide with Sarah!"
"Okay," he says.
"You have to stay hidden, no matter what!" I yell over the storm. "They won't come for you. It's me they want. Promise me, Mark! Promise me you'll
stay hidden with Sarah!"
Mark nods rapidly. "I promise!"
Sarah is crying and there's no time to comfort her. Another clap of thunder, another shotgun blast. She kisses me one time on the lips, her hands
holding tightly to my face and I know she would stay like this forever. Mark pulls her off, begins leading her away.
"I love you," she says, and in her eyes she is staring at me in the same way that I had stared at her earlier, before I left home ec, as though she
may be seeing me for the final time, wanting to remember it so that this last image might last a lifetime.
"I love you too," I mouth back just as the two of them reach the steps of the tunnel, and as soon as the words leave my lips, Henri cries out in pain. I
turn. One of the scouts has thrust a knife into his gut. Terror sweeps through me. The scout pulls the knife from Henri's side, the blade glistening with his
blood. It thrusts down to stab Henri a second time. My hand reaches out for it and I rip the knife away at the last second so that it is only a fist that hits
Henri. He grunts, gathers himself, and presses the barrel of the shotgun to the chin of the scout and fires. The scout drops, headless.
The rain starts, a cold, heavy rain. In no time at all I'm soaked to the bone. Blood leaks from Henri's gut. He's aiming the shotgun into the darkness,
but all of the scouts have moved into the shadows, away from us, so that Henri can't get a good enough aim. They're no longer interested in attacking,
knowing that two of us have retreated and a third has been wounded. Six is still reaching for the sky. The storm has grown; the wind is beginning to howl.
She seems to be having trouble controlling it. A winter storm, thunder in January. As quickly as everything started, it all seems to stop--the thunder, the
lightning, the rain. The wind dies away and a low groan begins to grow from off in the distance. Six lowers her arms, all of us straining to listen. Even the
Mogadorians turn. The groan grows, unmistakably coming our way, some sort of deep mechanical groan. The scouts step from the shadows and begin to
laugh. Despite our killing at least ten of them, there are many more than before. From far off a cloud of smoke rises over the tops of the trees as if a steam
engine is coming around the bend. The scouts nod to one another, smiling their wicked smiles, and re-form their circle around us in what is an apparent
attempt to get us back into the school. And it's obvious that that is our only choice. Six walks over.
"What is it?" I ask.
Henri hobbles, the shotgun hanging limply at his side. He's breathing heavily, a gash on his cheek below his right eye, a circular puddle of blood on
his gray sweater from the knife wound.
"It's the rest of them, isn't it?" Henri asks Six.
Six looks at him, stricken, her hair wet and clinging to the sides of her face.
"The beasts," she says. "And the soldiers. They're here."
Henri cocks the shotgun and takes a deep breath. "And so the real war begins," he says. "I don't know about you two, but if this is it, then this is it.
I, for one...," he says, and trails off. "Well, I'll be damned if I'll go down without a fight."
Six nods. "Our people fought back till the end. And so shall I," she says.
A mile off the smoke still rises. Live cargo, I think. That is how they transport them, by oversized semi-trucks. Six and I follow Henri back down
the steps. I yell for Bernie Kosar but he's nowhere to be seen.
"We can't wait for him again," Henri says. "There isn't time."
I look around one final time, and slam the cellar doors shut. We rush back through the tunnel, up onto the stage, across the gymnasium. We don't
see a single scout, nor do we see Mark and Sarah, and I'm relieved by that. I hope they are well hidden, and I hope Mark keeps his promise and that they
stay that way. When we make it back to the home-ec room I slide the fridge out of the way and grab the Chest. Henri and I open it. Six takes the healing
stone out and thrusts it against Henri's gut. He is silent, his eyes closed, holding his breath. His face is red under the strain but not a single sound
escapes. A minute of this and Six pulls the stone away. The cut has healed. Henri exhales, his forehead covered in sweat. Then it's my turn. She presses it
to the gash on my head and a pain far greater than anything I've ever felt before rips through me. I grunt and groan, every muscle in my body flexing. I can't
breathe until it's over, and when it finally is, I bend over and catch my breath for a full minute.
Outside the mechanical groan has stopped. The semi is hidden from view. While Henri closes up the Chest and places it back in the same oven
as before, I look out the window hoping to catch sight of Bernie Kosar. I don't see him. Another set of headlights passes by the school. As before, I can't
tell if it's a car or truck, and it slows as it drives by the entrance, then quickly speeds away without turning in. Henri pushes his shirt down, picks up the
shotgun. As we move towards the door, a sound stops the three of us dead in our tracks.
A roar comes from outside, loud, animal-like, a sinister roar unlike anything I have ever heard before, followed by the sound of the metallic clicks of
a gate being unlocked, lowered, and opened. A loud bang snaps us all back to attention. I take another deep breath. Henri shakes his head and sighs in
what is an almost hopeless gesture, a gesture made when the fight is lost.
"There's always hope, Henri," I say. He turns and looks at me. "New developments have yet to present themselves. Not all the information is in.
Don't give up hope just yet."
He nods and the tiniest trace of a smile forms. He looks at Six, a new development that I don't think either of us could have imagined. Who's to say
that there aren't more waiting? And then he picks up where I left off, quoting the exact words he spoke to me when I was the one who was discouraged,
the day I asked how we could possibly expect to win this fight, alone and outnumbered, far from home--against the Mogadorians, who seem to take great
joy in war and death. "It's the last thing to go," Henri says. "When you have lost hope, you have lost everything. And when you think all is lost, when all is
dire and bleak, there is always hope."
"Exactly," I say.
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